Homemakers: A new ring altogether

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There is an old saying that a house becomes a home due to the virtues of a woman. Those who champion women’s liberation would baulk at the idea. However, with financial independence striking deep roots among the female population, Indian women are increasingly emerging in a new home-making role — they are buying more and bigger homes.

Real estate majors say that more and more women are buying homes, and some of them are going for bigger ones with 3-4 bedrooms. Enquiries and sales of bigger dwelling units going up is a post-Covid phenomenon that has been attributed to work from home and schooling from home compulsions. A major online loan market Bankbazar has also reported that women borrowers are taking bigger home loans with average ticket size jumping 7.4% year-on-year to Rs 32 lakh. Many banks also offer concessional rates for home loans and auto loans for women borrowers.

While these appear to be an essentially urban middle-class trend, there are markers of women empowerment at the base of the pyramid too. The drive for financial inclusion has contributed to the cause of women empowerment. A cursory glance at the Jan-Dhan database would reveal that as many as 55.41% of the beneficiaries are women. In some states health insurance cards are issued in the name of the women member of the family. Direct cash assistance, too, is paid to female members.

Empowering women in a deeply patriarchal society is not easy and Indian policymakers deserve kudos for designing programmes both for the middle class as well as the bottom of the pyramid to promote female ownership of property that would gradually translate into a greater say of the womenfolk in their families.

Women’s rights are not easy to attain. Swiss women had to wait till 1971 to get the right to vote at a federal level.